Introducción

CHAPTER II
REFINING THE SECOND PRINCIPLE OF JUSTICE
“By the way in which a society behaves toward its old people
it uncovers the naked, and often fully hidden,
truth about its real principles and aims.”1
After more than thirty years since the publication of A Theory of Justice, a huge amount of
criticism and interpretations have revealed the main contributions of the theory as well as its
shortcomings. Fortunately, it is important to note that the suggested shortcomings of Rawlsian
liberalism have not outdated the theory: it continues to contribute considerably to many fields
of study and it can and has been a theoretical foundation for public policy conflicts that have
arisen currently. In particular, Rawls’ second principle of justice and his idea about
redistributive institutions can be used as a theoretical foundation upon which to assess public
policy, such as public pension schemes, which are of special interest to this dissertation.
Even though public pension schemes as well as other social programs may seem too
specific for Rawlsian analysis, they are not. They are programs directed to help and aid the
least advantaged part of the population. It will be remembered from earlier sections that the
“least advantaged” are the fundamental level of analysis of Rawlsian justice, whereby the
redistribution of social and economic inequalities has to be arranged so to benefit this
particular group.2 Regarding the case of pension programs however, in A Theory of Justice it
is not obviously clear that the elderly are actually considered as part of this disadvantaged
group. Therefore, to analyze pension schemes in further chapters with a Rawlsian perspective,
it is first necessary to determine the position of old age within Rawlsian justice. A main
objective of this chapter is to show that the elderly constitute part of the morally relevant
group that Rawls identifies as the least advantaged. This moral relevancy targets the elderly
1
Simone de Beauvoir, The C...